This section can be used by any person to communicate Wikisource-related and relevant information; it is not restricted. Generally announcements won't have discussion, or it will be minimal, so if a discussion is relevant, often add another section to Other with a link in the announcement to that section.

The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey is now open to receive proposals. Do you have an idea that will directly benefit active Wikimedia contributors? You can submit up to three. There's a whole category just for Wikisource! So we've got the next two weeks (until November 20) to write down all the great things that will make things better for Wikisourcerors.

Just a reminder that there are now four days remaining for people to submit proposals to the WIshlist Survey. The voting phase will then start a week after that (to give the Community Tech team time to sort out the hundreds of proposals). Wikisource currently has 21 proposals from 33 contributors!

I propose to remove the duplicate purge buttons, simply because they confuse, aside from the fact that they do nothing. I can't figure out why we have so many cache buttons, icons, and menu items. What does each supposed to do? Is it useful? . . . And which is a duplicate?

On a book's Index namespace page, I counted five cache related controls:

The browser's page refresh

Clock purge, which I have been using for years, before someone went berserk and added more of the same, (not a rare event in this wiki).

The Wikimedia purge icon next to the book2scroll icon.

On the "More" dropdown list, there are at least two more purge cache options.

Leave as is. The various types of purges are explained on w:WP:Purge. But in brief:

a browser purge is local to the device belonging to the user;

the purge via the clock gadget is a server side purge of the page;

the wikimedia purge icon at the top right purges the File: on Commons;

I don't have a "more" dropdown list (I use Monobook), but there are three purge buttons on each page. The first is identical to the purge via the clock gadget. This was added because not all users have chosen to turn the clock gadget on. The second forces an update of the recursive links as well as purging the page (in other words all pages this one links to will be reparsed as well); and

@Beeswaxcandle: Finally, Thanks for the clarification and I am sincerely grateful. I tried to figure it all out from the displayed url, but didn't get anywhere. Though I was aware of the duplicate of the clock/purge. Thanks again. — Ineuw talk 17:35, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

The clock purge is a gadget that by default is off. So it will only be present for those who chose and choose to have it on. There is also a different gadget tool for purge there too. User choice.

A null edit is edit/touch on a file, which is different from a purge. A purge is a soft touch refresh from the cache. Whereas null edit is shove that ensures that all the backend components are correct now, rather than background jobs that are handled by the queues. Really it is a save but not one that will show on the article history as there are no edit changes.

I'm in the middle of compiling a list of Presidential electors at w:List of United States presidential electors, 2016. In the process of collecting this information, I'm getting a whole bunch of original official documents from the various state governments, and I'm trying to figure out how best to archive this information. In a few cases, I'm getting the information in the form of PDF files, spreadsheets, and other formats that are also being sent via e-mail, thus are off-line.... and I'd like to make them available for review and examination to interested parties. Wikisource seems like a really good place to dump this information. Even the stuff that is online (aka available via URL) is something that I think would be worth archiving anyway as this kind of data has historically gone away after the end of the election.

Is there any guidance for how I should proceed? This is likely to grow to an archive of several hundred documents and is a whole lot of work to upload and organize that has particular current interest as well. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:56, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

We are a library, not an archive, and as such documents need to be of a historical nature, rather than just relate to something preserved, so the first check is WS:WWI; depending on what the documents may be is whether we would host, there are also some criteria including their static nature. That they are state documents does not automatically mean that they are reproducible public domain documents, which is the next check (that they are public doesn't mean that they are without copyright). If they are PD then any text layered files (pdf/djvu) belong at Commons, and the transcripts here via our ProofreadPage extension. If they are straight text copies then they would go straight to the main namespace with sources cited. Noting also that it is complete documents, not partials, that we collect. — billinghurstsDrewth 00:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

The documents in question are mostly the formal declarations of the slate of electors for each of the candidates in each state who are running for the presidency of the United States. I can't imagine a document that is more historical in nature than that, although it is definitely a primary source by any measure as well. If anything, the nature of the documents (like a sample ballot for several states is something I'm using as a source here too) are likely in the public domain. This is complete documents that I'm talking about here too... in terms of individual certificates that are usually just a single sheet of paper but it can get rather complicated as well.

If you are suggesting it is better to upload stuff like PDF files directly to the Commons, I'm fine with that. This is in fact one of the reasons I'm coming here first before acting as I want to get that part of your project down first. I'd still like to organize some of that content here on Wikisource though. Some public examples of these kind of documents to be included are as follows:

The copyright status on stuff like this would be really ambiguous, even more so because we are talking official government filings in a federal election. Even if somebody asserted copyright, I really doubt it would stick... but that is the domain of copyright lawyers. Neither of these documents have copyright being asserted. I know that doesn't directly imply it is in the public domain. --Robert Horning (talk) 01:23, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I don't understand the distinction between an archive and a library. What do you mean? From WS:WWI: "Wikisource, as the free library that anyone can improve, exists to archive the free artistic and intellectual works created throughout history..." Can you give me an example of a work that belongs at an archive but not a library and vice versa? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:03, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

We have a scope, and as a library it is published works out of copyright, and as an archive it is important/historical documents to align with free artistic and intellectual works. Other archives will have collections outside our scope, and an example would be my great grandfather's will belongs in an archive, but as he is not of historical/writing importance and as such it does not belong within Wikisource. Libraries collect published works within their scope. — billinghurstsDrewth 04:00, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: To be sure, not all works which have been published fit our scope (even if they were all in the public domain) but I certainly think that documentation on candidates for electors for an American presidential election is a relevant enough work. I could imagine that being in a public or academic library, whereas your grandfather's personal papers would not be. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:55, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

You asked for an example of difference and I provided that distinction. Re my opinion of the fitness of a work, it hasn't been expressed. At this point I am seeing documents of unclear copyright, that are list-like in some circumstance, or they can be seen to be larger correspondence in the larger sense. Lists in their nature are not copyrightable, though they are not what we typically host. (Historical) Letters are more aligned with what we host, even where they contain lists, however, they do need to fit be suitably licensed from Help:Copyright tags (a reasonable statement of claim) and suitable demonstrated to be within scope. — billinghurstsDrewth 10:48, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

This seems like a really odd distinction of "historical", which sems to me that you are saying "old" instead. I'll agree that hundred year old documents usually don't have problems of distinguishing copyright. Wikisource was arguably started originally as an original source repository for Wikipedia.... which is sort of what I'm trying to do here. Content still needed to fit within the GFDL (now CC-by-SA) or be public domain, but there were many things generally fitting within that definition that go well beyond what you are suggesting here.

Since I'm not the keeper of the flame to support this content, and particularly since I'm not really feeling welcome, I'll just go elsewhere. Sorry to waste your time. --Robert Horning (talk) 23:12, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

@Robert Horning: Your interpretation of my comments was not my meaning, I was simply contextualising how letters/correspondence fit but lists alone may not. Clearly I didn't express it to avoid ambiguity. I again point you to WS:WWI which covers our inclusions and mentions exclusions, and which I hadn't wanted to "checklist" point by point to whether your suggested works would fit. I look forward to a case proposing how your suggested inclusions fit within our criteria. — billinghurstsDrewth 11:54, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

@Robert Horning: I don't want anyone who is editing in good faith to feel unwelcome. I think there is a place for some of this documentation here and I want to help you find it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:01, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree! I think there's certainly scope here for at least some of the documents under discussion. Definitely, it sounds like most would be welcome at Commons (which is the first step to having them on Wikisource). The distinction of an archive vs a library is not such a well-defined one, in my opinion. It might be worth looking into the NARA material that is already hosted here, to see if there's any parallel. SamWilson 03:43, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

@Samwilson: Please don't hang up on my comments about an archive, it was illustrative to relate that WS is not a one to one relationship to an archive, as there will be much work in an archive collection that we wouldn't reproduce. Whereas we are very likely to wish to reproduce a library collection on a one to one basis. With regard to the NARA project, we are talking about a very specific subset of documents that have been released by NARA as they had historical significance. So yes it is an good example when comparing like to like, rather than as we have NARA documents that means we are open to all archive documents.

Yes, for sure, that makes sense, and I didn't mean to imply that you were making an extensive argument there. :-) I do think there is a place somewhere in the Wikimedia universe for the above collection of election-related material... maybe that place is mostly Commons though (and the larger text works can come here). With, of course, the caveats that they're free and open and someone wants to work on them! :-) SamWilson 01:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

i would not look to Wikisource:WikiProject_NARA/Completed about scope. it was an experiment, based on internal criteria. they have moved on to citizen archivist - they are transcribing military records and supreme court records at HQ building, not necessarily "most historical significance" but most convenient, by theme. their backlog is so vast, they tend to go where the researchers / curators lead them. your priorities may vary.

i would suggest that a list implies query, so wikidata property = 2016 US presidential electors. wonder if there is a political database with a complete list across time. [1]Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 16:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Category:Works with non-existent author pages has 2,423 works that need authors. It is a big backlog and more work that is reasonable for one person. I have found that numbers of those works probably should have override_author and other updates to the headers. Can I encourage the community to look to pick off works that they believe are in their area of interest so we can wheedle down that list. I am always comfortable with building author pages, just doing a lucky dip on those pages is a not a good use of time.

With Wikidata being good for searches to find authors in many languages, and also with Phe's WP author tool there is usually plenty of low hanging fruit for those who could pick of a few each day.

Thanks for your consideration, and any help that you can give. — billinghurstsDrewth 00:50, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I notice that about 140 of these pages are from "Gems of Chinese Literature". Perhaps there is a member here with a working knowledge of Chinese who could assist with those pages? --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:09, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I love creating author pages and doing research to fill in the blanks, so I’ll certainly do my best to help out. Marjoleinkl (talk) 08:44, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I am wondering how these pages are included in the category? I’ve come across a few entries (see Everyday Luncheons) that do have an author page, but with a redirect since it’s a pseudonym. How should I do in these cases? Marjoleinkl (talk) 08:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

They look like artefacts of the creation of a page and will disappear in time, or you can undertake null edits (touch) them. I will get Wikisource-bot to touch them all, and hopefully that will fix the category. — billinghurstsDrewth 11:26, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

D'oh, I stuffed that edit check for category filtering. That category is going to be stuffed for several days after my clumsy as it rebuilds after that heavy-handedness. Apologies. — billinghurstsDrewth 13:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

To note what I have done (after fixes). I have amended the {{header}} template to only categorise main and translation: ns works into the category and ditch those in user and template: ns. I had the bot touch all the pages in the category so that any that had had author pages added reassessed. So all seems back to cleansed and normally populated. (If I remember) I will get the bot to run through on a daily basis to touch pages to push the category clean rather than rely on the normal slower queued jobs list to process. — billinghurstsDrewth 22:49, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

No worries at all, I have a 17-month old who decided he hates sleep, so I’m very sympathetic to the small mistakes we all make sometime :D I’ll keep an eye on the category, thanks for looking into it! Marjoleinkl (talk) 13:21, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

it is unclear if it is a big backlog, with multiple hits from chapters on same author (maybe 300 uniques?) certainly much smaller than EB1911 backlogs. happy to chip in - nice template gadget, need to fill in wikidata if there is a VIAF or wikipedia article, good opportunity to include OCLC author works list.[2] (last, first) Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 15:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Slowking4: there is no reliable way to know which it is, and it is probably a mixture of both. Ruling out subpages would rule out the compilation works, so that isn't going to work. As we prod the queue on daily basis where an author had multiple works/parts, then those should drop out. — billinghurstsDrewth 22:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I didn't see this mentioned here, so just in case someone is interested. The CIA has released documents about UFO, available here: [3]. Does anyone want to transcribe a few of these here? At least, no copyright issue here. Regards, Yann (talk) 23:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

I've had an odd line spacing problem crop up in the main namespace for a transcluded text. I have routinely seen this sort of thing happen with the last line of text in the Page namespace, and accept it as a quirk of working there, but I have not previous seen this happen in the main namespace.

Look at line 675 of Tragedies of Euripides (Way)/The Phoenician Maidens (it is also the last line of page 38). The final line of the stanza appears lower than it should below the preceding text. It does not appear to be the result of {{gap}} used at the start of the line, or the result of the footnote at the end of the line, as neither of these features create this problem elsewhere in the text.

Has something changed recently that would affect the way transclusion text is displayed? --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:46, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

No, there is not an {{nop}} there, and there shouldn't be. There is a <br /> at the end of the page because the poetic format continues onto the next page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:19, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for being vague, it was a hit-and-run reply. I tried placing an {{nop}} at the end (after the <br /> on new line), previewed it, and the spacing went away. Not sure if it would also positively affect spacing in the Main. I didn't want to edit your page to find out... I won't pretend to know the technical wherefore and why, shoulds and shouldn'ts. Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:44, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

An {{nop}} does not help in the main namespace. The oddity of end-of-page line spacing is what you corrected, and I'm used to seeing that behavior there with regards to the final line on the page. Normally, however, such oddities in the Page namespace do not transfer to the main namespace. This occasion is the first time I've seen line spacing problems transfer over.

But you are correct that the same problem appears around line 238 (I had failed to spot that). However, that doesn't help narrow down the problem, as this location has all the same possible culprits: {{gap}} at the beginning of the line, a footnote in the line, a <br /> at the end of the line, the fact that it is the last line on a transcluded page, and that the first line of the following page begins with {{right}}. It could be any of these or the result of some combination of them. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:30, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

New information: I was getting the same effect at line 800 (end of page 45), and the only factors from before that are in common with this instance are (a) the line-terminating <br /> and (b) the {{right}} at the start of the next page.

I now have verified experimentally that {{nop}} clears the problem here. And it is also clearing the problem now with the other pages, where it wasn't doing so before. Not sure why. In any event, the problem seems to be resolved. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:30, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, I've been having a similar problem with <ref follow> at the end of pages. I've just tried putting in a {{nop}} both before and after. The only solution seems to be to move the ref up the page somewhere else and not have it at the bottom. In terms of the effect not showing: a simple page refresh doesn't seem to do it. I've had to purge the page cache to have my changes show through. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 8th. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 9th. It will be on all wikis from November 10th (calendar).

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 November 2016 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are Image Thumbnail API and allow SVG files uploaded on MediaWiki to have XHTML namespaces. The meeting will be on 9 November at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

RevisionSlider will be enabled by default on all beta wikis, on testwiki, testwiki2, mediawikiwiki and de.wikipedia.org. [9][10][11]

Not required. Published in 1893 in the US is Public Domain. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 23:38, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

The work is a collection, in which some works may have different copyrights (owing to a non-US source.). The concern was that some of the Hymns might still be in copyright outside the US. Hence the local mirroring request if Commons decides to be "difficult." ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 01:07, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

i don’t know why you are being paranoid about our diligent friends at commons. give it a year or two. we should really have a automated deletion alert for files in use so we can automatically carry them over. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 01:45, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Have you made a proposal for that in the tech-wishlist? I am up to my 3 proposal limit already. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:37, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

We are having a problem with attackers taking over wiki accounts with privileged user rights (for example, admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, checkusers). It appears that this may be because of weak or reused passwords.

Community members are working along with members of multiple teams at the Wikimedia Foundation to address this issue.

In the meantime, we ask that everyone takes a look at the passwords they have chosen for their wiki accounts. If you know that you've chosen a weak password, or if you've chosen a password that you are using somewhere else, please change those passwords.

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

When you edit with the visual editor you can use meta + shift + k to add a reference. The meta key is often the control key or command key. [13]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 15. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 16. It will be on all wikis from November 17 (calendar).

In Special:Preferences you can choose which language menus and buttons will be in. If there is no translation for that language, MediaWiki has a list of fallback languages. A fallback language is a language many will understand better than English. MediaWiki will now use English when there is no Ukrainian translation. [14]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 15 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Search a book It seems like having a template to search a given text is really useful and I'm sure that we must have one here but I'm not seeing it. I'd like to add it to books that I have helped to transcribe here. Something like b:en:Template:Book_search. Where is this located on Wikisource? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:16, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

The {{Engine}} template is used for this. I have no idea why it's called that! Perhaps it could have an alias of 'book search' or something? :-) SamWilson 05:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

I would support moving it to {{search book}} since I can't quite figure out what that template is supposed to do anyway.... Mukkakukaku (talk) 20:20, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

I use it on occasion to search for information within the PSM project and found it very useful. (. . . usual disclaimer) — Ineuw talk 17:38, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

And I moved it back. Always better to have a little conversation about such moves prior to moving. It is known by this name crosswiki, and some level of uniformity has value. There is a redirect there, and often that can be sufficient. — billinghurstsDrewth 01:22, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Sure, good to be consistent. I'm not sure the redirect couldn't go the other way (engine → search box) though, so as to make the more understandable template name take prominence. Do you know the history of why it's called 'engine' anyway? It's not very intuitive. Anyway, if it's to be 'engine' that's fine, but the documentation should at least match. SamWilson 06:46, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Notifications concerning Flow are no longer all grouped together in your preferences. The "Talk page messages" category will now include Flow notifications about your user talk page (if your user talk page uses Flow), and the "Mentions" category will now include mentions on Flow pages. Previously, all notifications related to Flow were grouped together in the "Flow" category. [18]

The orange bar will now also be displayed when a message is posted on a your user talk page if your talk page uses Flow; previously, it was only displayed if you had a wikitext talk page. [19]

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers can now use two-factor authentication. This makes their Wikimedia accounts more secure. This can be turned on in Special:Preferences. There are discussions on how to best turn it on for everyone. [20]

You can now search for file properties. For example you can search for media type, how big a file is or what resolution it has. [21]

A hacker group is hacking Wikimedia accounts. They can probably do this because users have the same passwords on Wikimedia wikis as on other sites. Please have a password you use only on the Wikimedia wikis and nowhere else. This is especially important for administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers. These users can also turn on two-factor authentication. [22]

Changes this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

RevisionSlider will be a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia. This will happen on 22 November. It will come to other wikis later. [23][24][25]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 22 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

It will be possible to do cross-wiki search. The developers who work on this are looking for communities that want to test this. [26]

Family records related to Charles McMicken and the American_Colonization_Society[edit]

I am not active in Wikisource, but as an OTRS agent I fielded an inquiry from a family member of Charles McMicken, Who has family records possibly of interest to this project. He apparently was involved in the American Colonization Society, a group involved in the founding of Liberia. Is thre someone who would be willing to look into this to see if the material is appropriate?--Sphilbrick (talk) 20:53, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: With regard to family records, it is not an easy IN or OUT decision (covered in WS:WWI). We are not a historical archive, so any old record is not automatically IN. So we have tended to look at a notability criteria (and somewhat akin to Commons and Wikidata) in that if supports an article at another site, eg. Wikipedia article, then it has sufficient notability to be hosted.

It would be best to point the person here and we can discuss specifically, though my initial thoughts are records that are directly related to the article and are citable, are YES; those that are indirectly related are probable/possible; those that are just scant documents are probably not something we would host. — billinghurstsDrewth 21:41, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

typically a local university will agree to accept into their special collections, i.e. University of Cincinnati [28] then, we help digitize and transcribe public domain items. i would suggest going there first. footer has their email [29] - and then GLAM [30] / Wikipedia Library [31] person could follow-up. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 23:55, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi, i come from Spanish Wikisource; there i had created a template that (as far as i know) it isn't in any other Wikisource. It is es:Template:Ditto. It is useful for lists with ditto marks. It reserves the space a word would use, and center a ditto mark of choice there. Copy and paste great, also works with WSexport. I know this can be achieved with tables, but sometimes that makes the code cluttered and more difficult to read, with all the aligns and stuf. Would you check it out? For any bugs, comments, etc.? Do you think it can be useful here? --Ninovolador (talk) 13:06, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure, but I think {{ditto}} achieves the same purpose? —C.F. 13:56, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

When someone tries to log in to a blocked account they will be blocked by a cookie. This means their browser will be blocked even if they change their IP address. This makes it more difficult for returning vandals. [32]

When you use Content Translation to adapt a template to a new translation it will work differently. You can adapt big templates such as infoboxes. Translators will have control over the template parameters. A first version of this is released this week. It is possible it will not work correctly with all templates. There will be more updates for this soon. [33]

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 November. It will be on all wikis from 1 December (calendar).

Gadgets will have a new option called "hidden". This means you can register gadgets that can't be turned on or off from the preferences page. Hiding gadgets was already possible by using [rights=hidden]. You should now use [hidden] instead. [rights=hidden] in old gadgets should be changed to [hidden]. [34][35]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 29 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

I can't fathom the why the template {{sp}} was created instead of a redirect to {{letter spacing}}. The difference is that the the shorthand version requires the spacing value to be placed after the text, while the original was designed to place the spacing value before the text. I wrote a clarification on the shortcut version, and will add the relevant info on the original, but I am not happy with the solution. Is there a way to standardize the two templates? — Ineuw talk 09:04, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

{{letter spacing}} is only used on a handful of pages; it wouldn't be too hard to manually replace all uses with {{sp}} and then merge the two. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:54, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

That sounds good. I only looked at the shorthand use and there is a lot. I filtered the "Page:" namespace but after changing a few, the link remained. Are the two linked in some other way? — Ineuw talk 19:04, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: I can't correct this mess because {¥{tl|sp}} is based on {{letter spacing}} with an addition of a 3rd parameter. It should be considered as two separate templates where the latter is based on the former. If you look at the history of {{letter spacing}}, and that of {{sp}}, whereby the original concept of the latter template was thoughtlessly modified without thinking of the consequences.

Where {{sp}} was used prior to modification, the property had only a fixed parameter of .15em. The addition of the 3rd parameter is what messed it up. The redirect {{ls}} cannot be used for the {{letter spacing}} shortcut because it is already in use as the shortcut of the {{Long s}} template.

I propose to add the proper information to the {{letter spacing}}/doc file, and create a redirect named {{lspc}} to it. Your comments would be most appreciated. — Ineuw talk 04:53, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I already created a template shortcut {{lp}} (for letter pitch) a few years ago. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:11, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

It still seems feasible to me to add a 3rd parameter to {{sp}} and merge the templates, converting uses of one to uses of the other. I've modified {{sp}} to no longer use {{letter-spacing}}. However, I'd like to see what other people think as well. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: Thanks for pointing out the {{lp}} shortcut. I wonder if there is a list of all redirected template shortcuts for reference? @Beleg Tâl:, I support your solution. It's the only way to reconcile a confusing situation. — Ineuw talk 18:18, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

P.S: Please let me know when the change to the templates are done, and I will update the documentation to both. — Ineuw talk 18:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm from the NOA project of the German Technical Information Library. It hasn't started yet, but we are planning to harvest open access publications. Mainly we are dealing with figures, but we would also like to bring fulltexts to Wikisource. I've worked in Wikisource a few years ago and know how crucial quality is. We will only do as much we can sufficiently handle with our manpower and are not intending to overstretch any volunteers resources. The publications will only be from full digital journals, so no OCR is necessary.

I would like to hear your opinion, which prerequisites are still missing and what you generally think about such work.--TIB-NOA (talk) 15:09, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@TIB-NOA: Let me know when you start migration--I'd like to help if I can. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:43, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, is this potentially dealing with open access textbooks? If so, as someone who knows little if anything about them, would there be any sort of need to perhaps do "editions" of the text, if it gets revised often? John Carter (talk) 22:51, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm glad you pointed out that. Textbooks and reference works do contain excellent information and figures for many wiki places. And in general articles and books can be processed likewise. So, potentially yes! Editions may be needed whenever automatic processing isn't feasible. Tonitrus (talk) 10:05, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@TIB-NOA, @Daniel Mietchen: I am presuming that you two have talk about the earlier work that Daniel did, and the discussion that we had at the time that Daniel and his colleagues uploaded a stack of works into the user namespace. In short, we will happily have the works, the important part is formatting (that DM explore) and getting the requisite wikidata in place for the articles. Bulk full digital is not something that the community cannot manage, BUT it is not something that we have well-addressed in the Wikidata age. I would think that we would be looking to get as much data as possible into WD, especially original source, and pulling it through rather than overly complicating matters here. We would probably want to talk to Wikidata about having a flag that clearly identifies digital sourced data, and one which we inhale rather than use our transcription ribbon. — billinghurstsDrewth 10:24, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Wtih regard to ribbon, at the moment there is a direct relationship between the transcribed pages that are scan supported; an example is Shakespeare, William (DNB00) (up top). We migrate those ribbons to the badges at Wikidata. With your proposed additions, they will not have the ribbon as they aren't going through the (not proofread) ... (proofread) ... (validated) cycle, so we will need another means to identify a text to text relationship. I suggest that a new badge at WD could be that means, and have started a discussion at d:Wikidata talk:Wikisource. — billinghurstsDrewth 10:07, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello! The Reading team at the Foundation is looking to support readers who want to take articles offline to read and share later on their phones - a use case we learned about from deep research earlier this year. We’ve built a few prototypes and are looking for people who would be interested in testing them. If you’d like to learn more and give us feedback, check out the page on Meta! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Everyone can now see Special:UserRights. Previously only those who could change user rights could. Other users got an error message. [37]

ORES can now show how likely an edit is to be damaging to the wiki with different colours. This only works for languages that have trained ORES to recognize damaging edits. [38]

Changes this week

You will now see categories with 0 pages in Special:Categories. Previously you did not see empty categories there. [39]

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 December. It will be on all wikis from 8 December (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 December at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Editing Design Research is desperately seeking at least one editor (preferably two) to run a formal user test for a new editing mode. You don't need to be an admin or a technical person – this is just about ordinary editing. Probably everyone who reads this will qualify.

Users must:

be able to speak English,

have access to Google Hangouts (for screensharing and talking),

You don't have to be videotaped yourself, but you must be able to share your screen via Hangouts, so they can see what you're doing.

You must have access to a working microphone (either external or built-in is fine), so you can tell them what you think.

have access to quiet place for 30- to 45-minute-long research session,

be willing to sign a standard research release form (I can get you a copy), and

have access to Chrome, Firefox or Safari (I believe this must be on a desktop system, not on a smartphone).

And I'd personally like:

Someone who doesn't think that Wikipedia is the only project, which is why I'm posting here. ;-)